Transplantation program brings cancer survivor gift of new heart

Updated 10:26 am, Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

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Dickinson resident Christy Sorrels has been battling health problems for most of her adult life, culminating in the need for a heart transplant. She underwent surgery and started the new year off with a new heart. less

Dickinson resident Christy Sorrels has been battling health problems for most of her adult life, culminating in the need for a heart transplant. She underwent surgery and started the new year off with a new ... more

Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

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Dickinson resident Christy Sorrels has been battling health problems for most of her adult life, culminating in the need for a heart transplant. She underwent surgery and started the New Year off with a new heart. less

Dickinson resident Christy Sorrels has been battling health problems for most of her adult life, culminating in the need for a heart transplant. She underwent surgery and started the New Year off with a new ... more

Sorrels won the battle against stage IV non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; she has been in remission for 12 years. But the red devil that fought her cancer - official name Doxorubicin - also weakened her heart, a common side effect.

"I couldn't breathe well," said Sorrels, 50, from the sofa of her Dickinson home, which she shares with her mother, Jan, and six friendly cats. "I just wasn't getting enough oxygen. My heart muscle was damaged."

Sorrels took medication for several years, but her heart continued to atrophy.

More Information

Organ Transplantation and Donation

On any given day, about 3,000 people in the U.S. are on the waiting list for a heart transplant, with wait times varying from days to several months. Only 2,000 donor hearts are available each year.

People of all ages and medical histories should consider themselves potential organ donors. Your medical condition at the time of death will determine what organs and tissue can be donated. Organs and tissues that can be donated include: heart, kidneys, lungs, pancreas, liver, intestines, corneas, skin, tendons, bone, and heart valves.

There is no national registry of organ donors. Even if you have indicated your wishes on your drivers' license or a donor card, be sure you have told your family as they will be consulted before donation can take place.

Sources: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; United Network for Organ Sharing

"I got to where I couldn't even do stuff around the house," she said. "I couldn't move furniture or decorate or even paint walls."

In Dec. 2011, Sorrels fainted and broke her ankle in three spots. When she got the ankle treated, doctors were more concerned about her heart.

A cardiologist at M.D. Anderson referred her to Memorial Hermann, which had just established a Center for Advanced Heart Failure that was poised to begin transplants. The three doctors still leading that effort are Igor Gregoric, chief of the surgical division; Biswajit Kar, chief of the medical division; and Pranav Loyalka associate chief of the medical division. All had been doing transplants at the Texas Heart Institute.

"When I met Dr. Loyalka," Sorrels said, "I had no idea he was a heart transplant doctor. I saw him for the first time in April 2012. I was on the heart transplant list by October."

Two months later, in the early hours of New Year's Eve day, Sorrels' phone rang.

"I got a call about 4 a.m.," she said. "The transplant coordinator said there may be a heart available."

Sorrels and her mother arrived at Memorial Herman at 6 a.m. By the time Houstonians were ringing in the New Year, a new heart was beating inside Sorrels' body.

New Year, New Heart

Sorrels was a perfect candidate for transplantation, says Loyalka.

"It was many years after her cancer and treatment," he explained. "She follows her medical regimen. She's relatively young and has a positive outlook. And she has good family support."

A member from the Memorial Hermann team picked up Sorrels' donor heart on the morning of Dec. 31. Gregoric performed the transplant.

"There's a lot of coordination, arranging flights and getting all the teams activated," Loyalka said. "You have four hours from the time you take a heart out of the donor to the time you put it in the patient. We have a range of about 1,200 miles around Houston. We've gone as far as Florida, North Carolina and Arizona to get a heart. The patient is brought into the OR an hour before we think the heart will get here. As the new heart is about to land, Gregoric will have opened the chest and prepared for the old heart to come out. It takes him about an hour to sew in the new heart."

Right away, Sorrels felt the force of a stronger heart.

"My head bobbed it was so strong," she said. "My whole body was pulsating."

She was told her new heart came from a male between the ages of 15 and 25 - so it's at least half her age.

Sorrels was up and walking after three days. After 12 days in the hospital she was discharged.

Now, eight weeks out from the transplant, she's feeling better than she has since 1996, when she was diagnosed with cancer.

She takes about 37 pills a day, though that number that will decrease. She also checks in at Memorial Hermann every other week for a heart biopsy, "to make sure there's no rejection."

After a transplant, the average length of time a heart lasts is about 10 years, Loyalka said.

"If you get past year one, that statistic is 13 years, because the risk of rejection for a heart is greatest in the first 6 months. It just depends. I have some patients who are 25 years out with a heart."

Of course, it all hinges on organ donation.

"You don't realize what it means to donate an organ until you've seen somebody go through the process," Loyalka said. "I had a recent patient whose donor heart came from Louisiana. My patient went there and met with the family of the young man who passed away. Eighty or 90 folks in the small town lined up with a stethoscope to hear their loved one's heart beating."

Sorrels said her family and friends have been a great support through her cancer and her heart transplant.

<"My mother has been with me for every doctor's appointment since 1996," she said.

When Sorrels finds herself in a hospital or waiting room with obviously distressed people, she tries to offer comfort.

"When I was inpatient, I'd talk to families in the hallways," she said.

Her mother, Jan, interjected: "She never hesitates. If she sees someone down and out, she talks to them."

Sorrels also has set a new personal goal. Hanging on hooks from the ceiling of her garage is a Cannondale mountain bike she rode in the 1990s.